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Comment by ThrustVectoring | Hacker News Reader

Note that employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ, but they are allowed to look at which college a candidate went to. Colleges, on the other hand, are allowed to measure and discriminate based on SAT score, which is highly correlated with IQ.

And since college education is mostly a positional good (it helps you compete against people with worse education for limited jobs), there's a pretty fantastic charitable opportunity for an enterprising lawyer to start suing employers over requiring or looking at college degrees.

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Note that employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ, but they are allowed to look at which college a candidate went to.

Your statement is factually incorrect, but surely honestly made (as I used to have the same misimpression of the law in the United States). You received a bunch of replies (as subreplies) on the point of companies using college graduation as a proxy for IQ. I am trained as a lawyer. Even after I was in law practice, I still had the (mistaken) belief that the holding of the Duke Power case was as you say here (and several subreplies say below). But that is NOT the correct holding of the Duke Power case. In fact, the case held that educational requirements (in the case, those were high school diploma requirements) are just as legally suspect as IQ tests not validated for that job in that workplace if the diploma requirements have disparate impact on different racial groups applying for jobs in that workplace. On the other hand, either an IQ test or a diploma requirement can pass legal scrutiny if it can be shown to be related to bona fide job requirements.

I have a FAQ on the topic[1], which is one of my most popular Hacker News comments ever.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543

There's a distinction between what is legally permitted versus what you will get sued over. IQ tests will generally get you sued in the US. Diploma checks generally won't. Neither is legal if it has a disparate impact against minorities (unless you can demonstrate a bona-fide occupational requirement).

What I'm advocating is suing people until the perception that preferring college graduates is legally safe is gone.

What? Employers can't test for intelligence?

Do you have a link that backs up your assertion that "employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ".

Griggs v. Duke Power Co: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

You could argue this is the principal cause of our horrifically wasteful college boom.

These tests are considered to be racially and culturally biased, so they are not suitable for employment decision making.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

>The effect of this decision has been to eliminate aptitude tests from the hiring process. During the intervening years, the college diploma has become the "de facto" tool by HR departments to winnow the flood of applications. Many jobs today require a college diploma, while before Griggs the same job did not.

Silicon Valley used to work around this with those infamous "Microsoft brainteaser" questions about how many manhole covers fit into a school bus or whatever. A lot of those questions were taken directly from a set of quiz books written by Jim Fixx. He was was a MENSA guy (high IQ society), and also more-or-less responsible for popularizing jogging in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx

How come employers still use aptitude tests then? It is apparently still legal.

Employers can, in fact, test for intelligence, and a number do (police departments excluding applicants who score too high on such tests -- and the cases validating the legality of that policy -- have been a subject of wide note.)

To the extent such test have racially disparate impact, there is a significant burden in showing that the test is a valid measure of ability to do the job for which it is used as part of the hiring process, but that burden is not impossible to meet.

Regarding "too high IQ for policemen" I've just found a case from 2000. Very interesting. Is there anything more recent?

http://www.aele.org/apa/jordan-newlondon.html

The NFL uses the Wonderlic test which is an IQ test.

IQ tests are most definitely legal.

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